Kaori Fujino & Kendall Heitzman Bilingual Reading of Nails & Eyes
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Kaori Fujino & Kendall Heitzman Bilingual Reading of Nails & Eyes
April 16 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Please join us with author Kaori Fujino & translator Kendall Heitzman for a bilingual reading of the Japanese literary horror novella Nails & Eyes. Awarded the 2023-24 Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, Nails & Eyes is “Tense, subtly disturbing Japanese literary horror perfect for fans of Tender is the Flesh and The Vegetarian. An unforgettably creepy child narrator weaves uncanny tales about her new stepmother in this feminist horror novella + short story collection that introduces a unique new voice in Japanese literature.”
With masterful narrative control, Nails and Eyes—appearing in English for the first time—builds to a conclusion of disturbing power. Paired with two additional stories of unsettled minds and creeping tension, it introduces a daring new voice in Japanese literature.
Kaori Fujino, a lifelong resident of Kyoto, is best known for fiction that reimagines tropes from horror, science fiction, Hollywood thrillers, urban legends and fairy tales. She holds an MA in aesthetics and art theory from Doshisha University. In 2013, Fujino was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prominent literary prize, for Nails and Eyes. In the fall of 2017, she was in residence at the University of Iowa’s prestigious International Writing Program. Her stories have appeared in English translation in Granta, Monkey and the US-Japan Women’s Journal.
Kendall Heitzman is an associate professor of Japanese literature and culture at the University of Iowa. He has translated stories and essays by Nori Nakagami, Tomoka Shibasaki, and Yusho Takiguchi. He is the author of Enduring Postwar: Yasuoka Shotaro and Literary Memory in Japan. His translation of “The Little Woods in Fukushima” by Hideo Furukawa appears in Monkey magazine.